


companioned still

by equestrianstatue



Category: Strange Meeting - Susan Hill
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Technically Two Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 17:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16815319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: All my love and good wishes, and of course the same to your friend John Hilliard, who I know will be looking out for you.





	companioned still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omnishambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnishambles/gifts).



“What are you smiling at?” Hilliard asked. He had been watching Barton reading a letter, out of the corner of his eye, since Hilliard had come into the dugout.

Barton looked up at him from where he sat on his bunk of wire netting. “Only my sister. Her youngest child— Jack, he’s nearly a year now— is learning to walk. He is forever head-first into the coal scuttle, or out of the front door before one knows it. And here he has even signed his name for me, for the first time— look!”

Barton tipped the letter in Hilliard’s direction, not handing it to him across the dugout, but indicating that he might might come and read it by his side. So Hilliard came and sat on the bunk beside him, and looked. He recognised the quick, lively handwriting of Amy, Barton’s sister. And there indeed, near the bottom of the page, was a thick, black pencil scribble, bursting from the neat lines of the letter into the margins. In his excitement or negligence, the child Jack had pressed almost all the way through the paper, so that Barton must be able to feel the impression of the mark with his fingers from underneath. Hilliard had a sudden urge to reach out and feel it too. The stark, tangible proof of the life of a child he had never met. But didn’t.

“And look here,” said Barton, tilting the page so that it caught the light of the candle better. As always, sharing this piece of intimacy without thought, as though Hilliard was quite as entitled to it as he was himself. Above the child’s mark, and Barton’s sister’s own name, the letter read:

_All my love and good wishes, and of course the same to your friend John Hilliard, who I know will be looking out for you._

Hilliard had read twenty such messages by now, but still he experienced an abrupt, strange joy at being enfolded so unceremoniously into the correspondence of the Barton family. At the idea that Amy Barton, who had never laid eyes on him, sat at home with her infant, and thought of him looking out for David, and wished him well.

He read the words again, and once more. Then said, “How decent of your sister.”

Barton looked up from the letter, and his mouth twitched. “Is that what I should write back? John Hilliard says that you are decent?”

“If you like.”

“John Hilliard thanks you for your message, and admits that you are decent.”

“What do you think I should say?”

Barton shrugged. “Why not write to her yourself?”

“To let her know that she is decent?”

Barton’s smile widened, as it always did when Hilliard fumbled, inexpertly, towards what he hoped was a joke. “Yes, why not.”

Hilliard found himself smiling too. It was comforting to be this close to Barton, to be able to look at him directly, to take all of him in. Hilliard was often looking at Barton, whether or not he was looking back. Not because of some accident of his features, because his face was particularly pleasing or symmetrical to view, but because looking at him was simply a reassurance that he was there. Hilliard thought that he had seen others watching Barton in the same way. Garrett, and some of the men. Those that recognised the vitality that seemed, even now, to be so amazingly preserved in him. But perhaps when they looked at him there was not quite the same fervent desperation behind it, as Hilliard felt, that Barton might never disappear.

They were sitting close enough together that when Barton laid the letter down in his lap, his elbow brushed Hilliard’s arm. Then Barton leaned quite quickly towards him and, like a punctuation mark, pressed his lips to Hilliard’s own.

“There!” Barton said. “My sister sends you her love, so there it is.”

It had been a slight turn of Barton’s head, and a brief, dry, pressure, nothing more. But it had been an expression of love, and Hilliard sat for a moment quite astonished by it. Although no, he was not astonished, because it had been no more remarkable than the way that he and Barton could talk and always understand one another, or live constantly at such close quarters, or be bound so effortlessly together in the thoughts of Barton’s family. Just like those things, Barton had made this easy, after all.

Barton did not look much concerned by what he had done, although his eyes shone in the guttering candle-light from the table. It needed no explanation. They could very well have said nothing more, and Hilliard could have gone and sat at the table and begun on the pile of letters for censoring, and everything would have been as normal. Only Hilliard did want to say something, because he wanted to show Barton how much it had pleased him. But he did not know what to say. So instead, he leaned in as Barton had done, and kissed Barton as he had done. Briefly, and honestly.

Afterwards, Hilliard did go and get on with the mens’ letters, and Barton took up his pen and paper and began to write a reply to Amy, until the candle burnt out and they both turned in to sleep. On his own bunk, unlacing his boots, Hilliard still felt a quiet elation brimming within him. Not just at the fact of the kiss, but at how easy it had been to do it. How grateful he was to Barton for making these expressions of oneself seem so very simple. He lay down to sleep with something on his lips that felt almost like a song.

*

It became something that happened between them, now and again. A goodnight kiss.

*

Footsteps went by in the trench outside, voices came softly. Then silence again.

The silence had ceased to feel unnatural, or, at least, the unnaturalness of the silence had ceased to feel unsettling. It seemed fitting, instead, that the war should pause for them tonight, as they waited for morning to come. In the morning they must go toe to toe with death. But then, there was no day when they did not do so. The only difference was that tomorrow, death had been better planned for.

Still Hilliard did not speak. He lay on his bunk, the weight of Barton’s just-spoken words on his heart.

_Things don’t happen like this often in a lifetime._

_Have you— do you have other friends who— is it the same with anyone else?_

_No._

What ought Hilliard to say in response? _I hoped you would say that_. Or: _My God_ , _please don’t be killed tomorrow._ Or, simply: _For me neither_.

In the quiet between them he heard Barton shifting where he lay. Then again. He realised that Barton was getting up. To go back outside into the frozen trench where he had been walking earlier, he thought, but instead Barton crossed the dugout to Hilliard’s bunk.

Hilliard blinked at him in the darkness, and pushed himself to his elbows. But Barton sat down next to him, and then, still in his greatcoat and boots, lay down by his side. Hilliard said nothing, did nothing. Barton seemed to be fidgeting, but then Hilliard realised he was unbuttoning his greatcoat. When it was open, he lifted the thick serge and wrapped it around Hilliard, so that he was half-inside the coat with Barton.

It was cold in the dugout, the frost creeping in under the sack-cloth at the entrance, and silver crystals forming in the mud of their bootprints. But Hilliard had only welcomed the respite from the rain. He had not really thought about how cold he was, not until now he felt the warm line of Barton come to rest against him. He realised then how stiffly he was holding his own body against the chill, how frozen his fingers were.

Then Barton’s own hand found his. It was not very much warmer than Hilliard’s, but it was a little. He held Hilliard’s hand. And then, after a moment, he brought the hand up to his face, next to his mouth. He breathed on it, the heat fleeting and wet against Hilliard’s skin. He covered the hand with both of his own and then breathed on it again. Then, after a moment’s pause, he pressed his open mouth to the skin of Hilliard’s palm.

Hilliard could not see Barton’s face in the dark. But, unusually, he did not think, only moved. He turned so that he was facing Barton, the coat wrapped around them both, their joined hands between them. Then he moved his hand gently away from Barton’s mouth, and kissed him there.

The air between their faces was warm and damp and heavy with the sound of their breathing. Then they kissed once again. Hilliard had the peculiar feeling that he had never been so safe in all his life as he was here, in this hollow of earth, with Barton’s coat wrapped around him and Barton’s mouth against his. He burrowed his hands beneath the heavy serge of the coat, reaching around towards Barton’s back and shoulders, between the coat and his tunic. He felt perhaps that if he could get close enough, it might not be possible for them to be separated.

Barton pulled him in closer, and Hilliard felt Barton’s hands brushing through his hair. He pushed his face into the crook of Barton’s neck and shoulder, underneath his coat, feeling the still-cold spot of his nose disappearing in the heat of the skin at Barton’s throat. He could barely breathe. But now they were as near to each other as they could be.

“It’s all right,” Barton was saying, very softly, “if you— it’s all right.”

And how could it not be, with Barton saying so? Hilliard had some general understanding of the scandals that were quickly hushed up now and again at most schools, and of the unmentionable vices of the Greeks, but had never thought very much upon the details of either. Besides, he did not see how those details were particularly relevant here, in France, when all he felt in Barton’s arms was the absolute necessity of his being there. The impetus that drove him bore little resemblance to what he understood to be desire or lust. It was simply a need to go on, to be closer.

Hilliard was not at all cold now, not as Barton pushed a leg over the top of his, as they both moved against one another in a jerking, uneven rhythm. He had pulled his face back from Barton’s neck, and now Barton’s forehead rested against his, his hands gripping the front of Hilliard’s tunic, holding on to him.

Eventually the desperation he felt peaked and subsided. Barton, too, became still, and lay wrapped around him, one hand smoothing the front of Hilliard’s tunic, one stroking lightly at his hair. Hilliard thought that if he tried to say anything he might laugh aloud, or that his voice might break. So he said nothing.

Soon the usual, low fears began to creep into the small circle of light that was lying here with Barton. That having been so close to one another, they might never be so again. That Barton might be killed tomorrow, or the day after, or the next week. Hilliard thought of the cold dawn which lay just a few hours ahead of them. Of how he and Barton would stand in a row of officers and men, pale-eyed and grey-lipped with anticipation and lack of sleep, and look out at the silent emptiness that sat between them and Barmelle Wood. He thought of the stretcher-bearers waiting with everyone else.

“John,” Barton said, or rather whispered. “I shouldn’t— fall asleep here, I should…”

Hilliard nodded, slowly. He began the process of uncoupling the joins that he and Barton had made, sliding his hands out from underneath Barton’s coat. But then he could not bring himself to shift his body entirely away, to let the cold air come between them. So he stayed pressed very tightly against him for a moment longer until, at last, Barton sat up.

“Well, I’ll be able to sleep now,” Barton said, some old edge of humour in his voice. Then he got up and went back to his own bunk.

Hilliard lay curled around the space where Barton had been a moment before. Listened to the sound of him breathing, still breathing, a few feet away on the other side of the dugout. _Say something_ , Hilliard thought, suddenly, fiercely, almost angry with himself, _say something, anything_. But his head and his mouth and his body all felt leaden with stupidity and fear and uselessness, now that Barton was no longer with him.

Only Barton _was_ with him. If Hilliard were to reach out a hand, the dugout was small enough that he would almost touch him.

“David,” he said. But then could not say any more.

Barton replied, softly, “Yes?” But then, when Hilliard was silent, he said, again, “Yes. I know. Yes.”

In the end they slept. 

_I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved:_  
_Only my thumping heart beat out the time.  
_ _Whispering his name, I groped from room to room._

_Quite empty was that house; it could not hold_  
_His human ghost, remembered in the love  
_ _That strove in vain to be companioned still._

_\- The Last Meeting, Siegfried Sassoon_

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, you can also reblog it [on tumblr](https://justlikeeddie.tumblr.com/post/181713165247/companioned-still-equestrianstatue-strange)!


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